


somnium.

by heartshapedcookie



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Implied Child Abuse, M/M, Michael feels guilty for not noticing certain things, but these boys love each other a lot and that's what matters, meremy, nothing graphic at all just mentions of bruises and a sprained wrist, pre-established meremy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-07-25 01:24:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16187186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartshapedcookie/pseuds/heartshapedcookie
Summary: When Michael palms his thin chest through the blankets and tee-shirt fabric, he feels his heart rattling deliriously around in his ribcage. He sleeps like someone is standing over the bed, watching him.Michael dreams while he and Jeremy try to sleep through a rainstorm.





	somnium.

**Author's Note:**

> editing my fics before i post them?? I don't know her
> 
> to quote kyle sugarman this fic poured out of my heart. in the worst way possible.

The quiet pours in like tide. There’s the distant smell of petrichor so rich and blue that it wads his words up in his throat like he’s choking back tears; he swallows forcefully, tasting saltwater. He leans in a little closer until his nose is shivering past the nape of Jeremy’s freckled neck and inhales indulgently, luxuriating in the dry, warm, autumnal scent of his skin. It is a little too hot, the two of them tangled up in flannel sheets and no breeze to chase away the murky humidity that seeps in like fever, but he stays close.

 

Jeremy sleeps like someone is trying to wake him, head pushing deep into the pillow and body constantly folding in his arms, contorting away from some light he cannot see. His breaths occasionally come in little huffs, almost disgruntled, almost tearful. When Michael palms his thin chest through the blankets and tee-shirt fabric, he feels his heart rattling deliriously around in his ribcage. He sleeps like someone is standing over the bed, watching him.

 

The petrichor is back. Michael blinks purposefully until his myopic vision is somewhat restored, then presses his brow against Jeremy’s neck and thinks about deer.

 

.

 

.

 

“I had a weird dream. I thought it was a nightmare when I woke up because I was, like, freaking out a little, but I think that was just adrenaline. Like fight or flight? But it wasn’t a nightmare, really, it wasn’t scary. Just—weird.”

 

It is four pm. Michael knows this because they’re sitting on the floor in his bedroom, their respective homework assignments balanced on their knees and an opened bag of white cheddar popcorn between them. In this memory, he is the spectator. He remembers the sensory details with crushing clarity—the grit of synthetic cheddar in his molars and the shag carpeting against his knees and the pressure of his binder on his thigh—but he can’t remember what he said. He only remembers Jeremy’s voice, still high and unbroken and prepubescent. Michael’s voice dropped first. This and the popcorn and the carpeting and the binder—he remembers.

 

“It was—I don’t know, it was weird,” Jeremy is murmuring in response to whatever Michael said. He thinks of the garbled trombone voices in old Charlie Brown specials and smiles a little to himself, which is short-lived because then Jeremy is opening his mouth, braces glinting. “We were at lunch. In my dream. Only it didn’t really look like the cafeteria—I just knew it was the cafeteria, you know? And there… it was too white. The walls. They were like blinding. And then a dead deer fell down from the ceiling.”

 

He is saying something to Jeremy, but all he can hear is his own heartbeat in his ears. Or maybe it’s Jeremy’s again, his pulse galloping in his sleep.

 

“Yeah! I know, it-it was… it was so weird. I don’t know how I knew it was a dead deer, I just… I just knew it was. No one knew what to do about it… We just all kind of stared at it. We didn’t know what to do.”

 

Michael can’t breathe. He doesn’t know if it’s the petrichor or the way he has his face pressed into the narrow space between Jeremy’s shoulder blades, like he’s trying to peer through his ribs like window blinds and see his heart still plugging away. He wants to reach his hand back through time and tap himself on the shoulder—grab his shoulder and shake him violently, get it through to him.

 

 _Look closer,_ he mouths into Jeremy’s back.

 

“Yeah… I guess so. I… I think maybe it meant something? I don’t know what, but maybe. Maybe it means something. Or maybe it means nothing. I don’t know. You can have the rest of the popcorn.”

 

.

 

.

 

Michael is awake again, lathered in sweat. He can dimly hear himself panting, but he doesn’t know why or where his mouth is in relation to the rest of his body, which feels like a minimalist anatomy sketch—all wavy lines, all impressions. Rib-rattling peals of thunder explode in the far distance, anchoring him back into reality as he tastes the tropical wetness of impending rain on his dry lips.

 

Jeremy has rolled onto his opposite side, curled in towards Michael with the sheets bundled securely against his chest. His curls are tumbled and a little frizzy; tear salt dusts his acne-studded cheeks. For a moment, Michael thinks that Jeremy must have revisited the same memory, then realizes the total improbability of such an incidence and rediscovers his body by draping an arm cautiously around the boy’s body.

 

Movement. The room throbs with febrile heat, throbs with thundering blood and pounding feet. Jeremy tries to bury himself into the space between them, scrunching his body into an inoffensive shape that is a little easier for Michael to hold. He draws him closer and wonders if Jeremy ever dreamed about the deer again. He wonders if the dream ever became a nightmare.

 

.

 

.

 

It is almost midnight. Michael knows this because adult swim is about to start showing anime reruns. The cool cobalt glow of the television eats away at the darkness of his basement, but Jeremy’s face is untouched by the chilly light. He’s slumped to the side, not quite dozing; his eyes might even be open. He has fewer details for this moment, yet the scene has crystallized painfully in his memory and the empty sensory space is simply filled with staticky, bruise-blue interference.

 

“What happened to your wrist?” Michael asks. Though he can recall what he said that night, his voice sounds barky and distorted—like old video game audio.

 

Jeremy is definitely awake now. The whites of his eyes gleam dully. “I… I told you what happened, dude.” His voice is different too, but it’s a familiar difference—heartbreakingly familiar.

 

“I know what you told me.”

 

 _Look closer,_ he mouths through a mouthful of humid darkness.

 

Now Jeremy is sitting up and in the lurid screenlight, his face is so shatteringly pale and famished, hungry for something that Michael can’t identify. He has his splinted wrist tucked against his chest—his heart is racing, Michael can feel it through the sheets again—and there is something tucked up under the sleeve of his sleep-shirt, something like a violet with four-five petals (a thumb is still a finger when it closes around an arm), something secret and furiously purple and strange. That alien tattoo stamped into his best friend’s skin is like some terrifying prop from a horror movie. He wants to know that it’s just smoke and mirrors, practical effects, makeup artistry. Looking closer feels like trying to breathe in the void of space.

 

“I tripped over the porch steps and broke my fall,” Jeremy says levelly. Even then, he was a solid actor. His eyes are so bright that Michael can’t look into them without his own watering in response.

 

This is where the memory ends. The tape in his mind glides along on electric eyes, rewinding for future viewing.

 

.

 

.

 

They’re both shaking. Michael hugs Jeremy against his body, trying desperately to cling to the present moment and the reassuring solidity of the boy in his arms. He feels like the dead deer will drop at any moment, that bloody carcass slamming wetly against the cafeteria linoleum—but it isn’t the cafeteria, not really—and he won’t know what to do again. He would be able to identify it if he only looked closer, but nobody is looking closer and nobody knows what to do.

 

“I’m sorry,” Michael blurts softly. A warm pulse behind his eyes and he’s crying now, briefly overwhelmed by the steel-soil smash of petrichor against his nostrils. The sky convulses with lightning.

 

Jeremy blinks awake, staring fuzzily through the stormy darkness. It’s a moment before he realizes that he’s in Michael’s bed, blankets, arms, then another as he takes in the tears being shed. His brow crinkles with befuddlement. “Michael?”

 

“I’m sorry, Jeremy,” he repeats shakily. He doesn’t know what else to say. “I’m sorry.”

 

“About… About what?”

 

“I’m sorry I didn’t notice. I’m sorry I didn’t—I didn’t do something about it.”

 

The world shrieks with thunder, but Jeremy doesn’t flinch. Instead, he gathers the excess fabric of his sleeve up in his hand and reaches out to clumsily mop away Michael’s tears. His gaze is soft as cashmere and—

 

.

 

.

 

“Do you think it’s true?”

 

It is almost lunchtime. Michael knows this because they are sitting in AP Psychology, pretending to look over flashcards together until the bell rings. All he remembers is what Jeremy says next.

 

“That kids really do grow up to be just like their parents?”

 

.

 

.

 

—everything about the gesture is doe-gentle. Michael leans unconsciously into the touch.

 

“You were there for me,” Jeremy says. “That’s all I needed from you.”

 

“I could’ve done more.”

 

“No.” A wan smile. “Nothing would’ve changed.”

 

Michael’s done enough research on social services and custody hearings to understand what he means, but his heart still believes otherwise. He knows he was afraid of looking closer, of leaning in—of what he might find underneath the shirt sleeve. Eyes squeezed shut, he takes the fabric-clad hand still resting lightly on his cheek and holds it against his heart. Every digit is precious, every hilt priceless. “I’m sorry, Jeremy.”

 

“I know.” His voice breaks like a candy stick. “It’s okay.”

 

“No, it’s not. It never was.”

 

Jeremy exhales fiercely, as if he’s been holding his breath for hours. “It has to be okay. Right now. It has to be.”

 

Michael gives his hand another squeeze, but doesn’t let go. Not yet. “I love you, Jer.”

 

“I love you too.”

 

“Can you sleep?”

 

“Maybe. I don’t know.” Jeremy glances up at the ceiling until the moisture in his eyes recedes. “Do you wanna hear about the dream I had?”

 

“Yeah.” Michael leans in until their foreheads are touching and keeps the hand held to his chest, protectively cupped to his heart. When he returns to this moment, he will remember the unruly curls swept across Jeremy’s brow and the thrum of rain against his roof and the minty tang of toothpaste still on his breath. He looks closer until Jeremy is all he sees. “Tell me all about it.”


End file.
